LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 



Chap. 
Shelf 



.1< ^ 



•%/-- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LETTER 



THE HON. SAMUEL A. ELIOT, 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE CITY OF BOSTON, 



IN REPLY TO HIS 



APOLOGY FOR VOTING FOR THE FUGITIVE 
SLAVE BILL. 



'^" 



By hang 



OCK. )>2^:i^ * 



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BOSTON: 

WM. CROSBY & H. P. NICHOLS, 

111 Washington Street. 

18 5 1. 



3 



O 



CAMBRIDGE: 
MET CALF AND COMPANY, 

PRINTERS To THB UNIVBRSITV. 



Aj 



A LETTER, &c. 



Sir,— 

An English courtier procured a colonial judgeship for a 
young dependant wholly ignorant of law. The new func- 
tionary, on parting with his patron, received from him the 
following sage advice, — " Be careful never to assign rea- 
sons, for whether your judgments be right or wrong, your 
reasons will certainly be bad." You have cause to regret 
that some friend had not been equally provident of your 
reputation, and intimated that it was only expected of you 
to vote for Mr. Webster's measures, but by no means to as- 
sist him in vindicating them. You did, indeed, vote pre- 
cisely as those who procured your nomination intended 
you should ; yet, on your return home, you found your 
name had become a byword and a reproach in your native 
State. Another election approached, but you declined sub- 
mitting your recent course to the judgment of the electors, 
and withdrew from the canvass. But although the people 
were thus prevented from voting against you, they per- 
sisted in speaking and writing against you. Anxious to 
relieve yourself from the load of obloquy by which you 
were oppressed, in an evil hour you rashly appealed to the 
public through the columns of a newspaper, and gave the 
" reasons " of your vote for the Fugitive Slave Law. You 
had a higli and recent example of the kind of logic suited 
to your case. You might have indulged in transcendental 



nonsense, and talked about the climate, soil, and scenpry 
of New England and the wonders of physical geography, 
and, assuming that negroes were created free, you might 
have contended that, in voting for a law to catch and en- 
slave them, you had avoided the folly of reenacting the 
law of God. Reasons of this sort, you and others had de- 
clared, " had convinced the understanding and touched the 
conscience of the nation." Instead of following an ex- 
ample so illustrious and successful, you assign "reasons" 
so very commonplace, that the most ordinary capacity can 
understand them, and so feeble, that the slightest strength 
can overthrow them. 

Your first "reason" is, that the delivery of fugitives is 
a constitutional obligation. By this you mean, that, by 
virtue of the construction of a certain clause in the Consti- 
tution by the Supreme Court, Congress has the power to 
pass a law for the recovery of fugitive slaves. Well, Sir, 
does this constitutional obligation authorize Congress to 
pass any law whatsoever on the subject, however atrocious 
and wicked ? Had you voted for a law to prevent smug- 
gling, in which you had authorized every tide-waiter to 
shoot any person suspected of having contraband goods 
in his possession, would it have been a good "reason " for 
such an atrocity, that the collection of duties was " a con- 
stitutional obligation"? You are condemned for voting 
for an arbitrary, detestable, diabolical law, — one that tram- 
ples upon the rights of conscience, outrages the feelings 
of humanity, discards the rules of evidence, levels all the 
barriers erected by the common law for the protection of 
personal liberty, and, in defiance of the Constitution, and 
against its express provisions, gives to the courts the ap- 
pointment of legions of slave-catching judges. And your 
"reason" for all this is, that the delivery of fugitives is 
" a constitutional obligation " ! The " obligation " is not 
in issue. Please to understand. Sir, that it is not denied. 
It is for Xhe'inanner in which you profess to have dis- 
charged the obligation that you are censured, and be it re- 



membered, that not one of the obnoxions provisions of your 
law is required by the Constitution. You go on and at- 
tempt to enlighten your constituents as to the history of this 
constitu " al ob i ation. As the obligation affords you no 
apology for the iniquitous features of your law, its history 
is, of course, mere surplusage, and serves no other purjiose 
than to divert the attention of your readers from yourself. 
About two thirds of your apology is occupied with an his- 
torical disquisition, which has as much to do with your 
vindication as the question respecting the existence of a 
lunar atmosphere. I will not, however, withhold from you 
whatever benefit you may derive from either your logic or 
your history, but will give each a fair and honest examina- 
tion. You inform the public that, at the time the Consti- 
tution was formed, 

" Slavery had been aboir.shed in some of the States, and still 
existed in others. Here seemed an insurmountable incompati- 
bility of interests, and nothing perplexed the wise men of that day 
— and they were very wise men — so much as this topic. At 
last they agreed that the new Constitution should have nothing to do 
with it ; that the word slavery should not be mentioned in it, and 
that it should be left to the Slates themselves to establish, retain, or 
abolish it, just as much after the adoption of the Constitution as be- 
fore. But in order to secure the existence of the institution to 
those States who preferred it, it was agreed that the persons escap- 
ing from labor to which they were bound, in one commonwealth, 
and found in another, should be returned to the State from which 
they had fled. The provision was necessary for the preservation 
of this interest in statu quo. It did not extend slavery. It kept it 
where it already was, and where it could not have continued if 
every slave who escaped North was at once free and irreclaimable. 
The members of the confederacy from the South saw this distinctly, 
and deliberately declared that they could not and would not enter 
a union with Slates who would tempt away their slaves with the 
prospect of immediate and permanent freedom The Con- 
stitution was adopted with this provision, and it could not have been 
adopted without it." 

Thus we learn from you, Sir, that when the Constitution 



was formed, "slavery had been abolished in some of the 
States." It is a pity you did not vouchsafe to tell us 
which of the States had thus early and honorably distin- 
guished themselves. Of the thirteen American States in 
1787, how many. Sir, had by law abolished slavery? Not 
ONE. Your "some States" consisted of Massachusetts 
alone. And how was slavery abolished there? Not by 
any express prohibition in her constitution, nor by any act 
of her legislature. Fortunately, her constitution, like that 
of most other States, contained a general declaration of hu- 
man rights, somewhat similar to the "rhetorical abstrac- 
tion " in the Declaration of Independence. Two or three 
years before the Federal Convention assembled, a young 
lawyer, perceiving that the declaration in the constitution 
had inadvertently made no exclusion of the rights of men 
with dark complexions, brought an action for a slave 
against his master for work done and performed. An up- 
right and independent court, not having the fear of our 
Southern brethren before their eyes, decided that the slave 
was a MAN, and therefore entitled to the rights which the 
constitution declared belonged to all men, and gave judg- 
ment for the plaintiff. In this way. Sir, was slavery abol- 
ished in Massachusetts, and hence the delegates from Mas- 
sachusetts in the Convention were the only ones who 
represented a free State. And now. Sir, what becomes of 
your "insurmountable incompatibility of interests" arising 
from the fact that 'slavery had been abolished in some 
States and still existed in others," which you tell us so much 
perplexed the wise men of that day? We shall see. Sir, 
that on questions touching human bondage the Massachu- 
setts delegation seem to have been slaveholders in heart, 
and did not partake of the perplexity which troubled the 
wise men. With the exception of that delegation, there 
were not probably half a dozen members of the convention 
who were not slaveholders. 

It would seem froin yonr historical review, that the 
clause in the Constitution respecting fugitive slaves was 



the grand compromise between the North and the Sonth, 
without which " the Constitution could not have been 
adopted " ; and that to this clause we owe our glorious 
slave-catching Union. You fortify this wonderfid histori- 
cal discovery by appealing to the "deliberate declarations" 
of Southern members, that they " would not enter a union 
with States who would tempt away their slaves," &c. It 
is to be regretted that you have not deemed it expedient to 
refer to the records of these declarations, as other students 
of our constitutional history are wholly ignorant of them. 
Suffer me, Sir, to enter into a few historical details, for the 
purpose of vindicating the liberty I take to dilfer with you 
as to the accuracy of your statements. 

The Convention met in Philadelphia, 25th May, 1787. 
On the 29th of the same month, Mr. Randolph, of Vir- 
ginia, submitted a plan of government. It contained no 
allusion to fugitive slaves. On the same day, Mr. Charles 
Pinckney, of South Carolina, submitted another jilan. 
This last provided for the surrender of fugitive criminals, 
but was silent about fugitive slaves. On the 15th of June, 
Mr. Patterson, of New Jersey, submitted a third plan. 
This also provided for the surrender of fugitives from 
justice, but not from bondage. On the ISth, Mr. Hamilton 
announced his plan, but the fugitive slave found no place 
in it. On the 26th of June, the Convention, having agreed 
on the general features of the proposed Constitution in the 
form of resolutions, referred them to " a committee of de- 
tail," for the purpose of reducing them to the form of a 
Constitution. In these resolutions, there was not the most 
distant allusion to fugitive slaves. Oji the Gth of August, 
the committee reported the draft of a Constitution, and yet, 
strange as you may deem it, the provision without which, 
you tell us, the Constitution could not have been adopted, 
was not in it, although there was in it a provision for the 
surrender of fugitive criminals. For three months had the 
Convention been in session, and not one syllable had been 
uttered about fugitive slaves. At last, on the 29th of 



8 

August, as we learn from the minutes, " It was moved 
and seconded to agree to the following proposition, to be 
inserted after the 15th article : ' If any person, bound to 
service or labor in any of the United States, shall escape 
into another State, he or she shall not be discharged from 
such service or labor in consetiuence of any regulation sub- 
sisting in the State to which they escape, but shall be 
delivered up to the person justly claiming their service or 
labor,' which passed unanimously.''' Really, Sir, I find in 
this record but little evidence of the perplexity which dis- 
tressed our wise men, or of the great compromise between 
the North and South, on which you dwell. The 15th 
article, referred to above, was the article providing for the 
surrender of fugitives from justice, and this suggested the 
idea, that it would be well to provide, also, for the surren- 
der of fugitive slaves. In an assembly consisting almost 
exclusively of slaveholders, the idea was exceedingly rel- 
ished ; and without a word of opposition, the suggestion 
was unanimously adopted. From Mr. Madison's report 
we learn that, the day before, Messrs. Butler and Pinckney 
had informally proposed that fugitive slaves and servants 
should be delivered up " like criminals." " Mr. Wilson [of 
Penn.]. This would oblige the Executive of the State to do 
it at the public expense. Mr, Sherman [of Conn.] saw no 
more propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave 
or servant than a horse." {Madison Papers, p. 1447.) 
The subject was here dropped. The next day the motion 
was made in form, and, as Mr. Madison says, " agreed to, 
nem. con.-'' From the phraseology of the motion, and 
the objections of Messrs. Wilson and Sherman, it was per- 
fectly understood that the obligation of delivery was im- 
posed on the States, and that no power was intended to be 
conferred on Congress to legislate on the subject. Messrs. 
Wilson and Sherman's objections arose from no moral 
repugnance to slave-catching, but from the inconvenience 
they apprehended the State authorities would be subjected 
to ; and Mr. Wilson perhaps spoke from experience, as his 



own State had at that very time a law for catching and 
returning fngitive slaves from other States. The idea, 
therefore, that tliis agreement was a compromise between 
the North and South is wholly Imaginary, and you, Sir, 
must have mistaken some recent fulminations from the 
Southern chivalry for the " deliberate declarations" wJiich 
you suppose were made in the Convention. Believe me, 
Sir, no members of the Convention ever declared they 
would not enter into the Union, unless it was agreed to 
surrender fugitive slaves, for the obvious reason, that the 
Northern slaveholders required no threats from their 
Southern brethren to consent to a compact convenient to 
both. It is very true, Sir, that there were compromises, 
and that there were " deliberate declarations," but they 
had no reference to the surrender of runaway slaves. I 
have pointed out your historical mistake, not because it 
has the remotest bearing on your justification, but because 
you seem to think that it has. 

The first great compromise was between, not the North 
and the South, but the small and the large States. The 
one claimed, and the other refused, an equality of suffrage 
in the national legislature. It was at last agreed, that the 
suflrage should be equal in one house, and according to 
population in the other. This was the first compromise. 
Then came the question, What should constitute the repre- 
sentative population ? The Southern States had more 
slaves than the Northern, and the former insisted that 
slaves should be included in the representative population. 
This would have given the Southern States an unfair 
preponderance in Congress. Moreover, a portion of the 
Southern States were engaged in the African slave-trade, 
and, of course, every slave landed on their shores would 
increase their political power in Congress. To reconcile 
the North to slave representation, it was offered that direct 
taxation should be proportioned to representation. But the 
North was reluctant, and, as usual, was bullied into a com- 
promise. Mr. Davie, of North Carolina, made a "deliberate 
2 



10 

declaration " : — '' He was sure that North Carolina would 
never confederate on any terms that did not rate them (the 
slaves) at least as three fifths. If the Eastern States meant, 
therefore, to exclude them (the slaves) altogether, the busi- 
ness was at an end." [Madison Papers, p. 1081.) This 
threat, and others like it, settled the matter. The com- 
promise, of three fifths of the slaves to be included in the 
representative population, was accepted on the motion of a 
Nero England jneniber ; and the consequence is, that the 
slave States have now twenty-one members in the lower 
house of Congress more than they are entitled to by their 
free population. This was the second compromise. There 
was still a third, far more wicked and detestable, and ef- 
fected by the "deliberate declarations" of Southern mem- 
bers. The " committee of detail " has been already men- 
tioned. It consisted of Messrs. Rutledge of South Carolina, 
Randolph of Virginia, Wilson of Pennsylvania, Ellsworth of 
Connecticut, and Gorham of Massachusetts. This com- 
mittee, it will be recollected, were to reduce to the foryn 
of a Constitution the resolutions agreed on by the Conven- 
tion. Neither in the resolutions themselves, nor in the 
discussions which preceded their adoption, had any refer- 
ence been made to a guarantee for the continuance of the 
African slave-trade. Nevertheless, this committee, of their 
own will and pleasure, inserted in their draft the following 
clause : — "No tax or duty shall be laid by the legislature 
on articles exported from any State, fior on the migration 
or importation of snch persons as the several States shall 
thiiik proper to admit, nor shall such migration or importa- 
tion he prohibited.''^ To understand the cunning wicked- 
ness of this clause, it must be recollected that Congress 
was to have power to regulate foreign commerce, and com- 
merce between tiie States ; and hence it might, at a future 
time, suppress both the foreign and domestic commerce in 
human flesh, or it might burden this commerce with du- 
ties. Hence this artfully expressed perpetual restriction on 
the power of Congress to interfere with the traffic in human 



11 

beings. As this grand scheme was concocted in the com- 
mittee, and not in the Convention, it may be interesting to 
inquire into its paternity. 

In the debates which ensued on this clause, Mr. Ells- 
worth, one of the committee who reported it, " was for 
leaving the clause as it now stands. Let every State im- 
port wJiat it pleases. The morality or wisdom of slavery 
are considerations belonging to the »Statcs themselves. 
^Vhat enriches a part e?iriches the whole, and the States 
are the best judges of their particular interests. The old 
Confederation had not meddled with this point, and he did 
not see any greater necessity for bringing it within the 
policy of the new one." "As slaves multiply so fast in 
Virginia and Maryland that it is cheaper to raise than to 
import them, whilst in the sicJdy rice-swamps foreign sup- 
plies are necessary, if we go no farther than is urged [a 
proposal to permit the trade for a limited time], we shall 
be unjust towards South Carolina and Georgia. Let us not 
intermeddle." [Madison Papers, pp. 1389, 1391.) This 
gentleman was one of your " very wise men " ; and his 
mantle has recently fallen upon other wise men from the 
East. Mr. Wilson, another member of the committee, ob- 
jected. " All articles imported," said he, " are to be taxed ; 
slaves alone are exempt. This is, in fact, a bounty on 
that article." The clause was referred to another commit- 
tee, who modified it, by limiting the restriction to 1800. 
It was moved to guarantee the slave-trade for twenty 
years, by postponing the restriction to 1808. This mo- 
tion was seconded by Mr. Gorham, another member of 
the conmiittee. Mr. Randolph, also of the committee, 
was against the slave-trade, and opposed to any restric- 
tion on the power of Congress to suppress it. Two of 
the committee, then, we find, were against the trade, 
and three, Messrs. Rutledge, Ellsworth, and Gorham, for 
perpetuating it. And now, Sir, what were the induce- 
ments which prevailed on the two wise men from the 
East to yield their consent to a proposition so wicked and 



12 

abominable ? We are, of course, not informed what passed 
in the committee, but we can well imagine, from the lan- 
guage used by the chairman and others in the Convention. 
Said Mr. Rutiedge, " If the Convention thinks North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, and Georgia will ever agree to this 
plan [the Federal Constitution] unless their right to import 
slaves be untouched, the expectation is vaix. The people 
of those States will never be such fools as to give up so 
important an interest."' In other w^ords, ''Gentlemen of 
the North, no Union without the African slave-trade." 
Said Mr. Charles Pinckney, " South Carolina can never re- 
ceive the plan [of the Constitution] if it prohibits the slave- 
trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Con- 
gress, that State has expressly and watchfully excepted 
that of meddling with the importation of negroes." [JSIad- 
ison Papers, p. 13S9. ) Mr. Charles C. Pinckney "thought 
himself bound to declare candidly, that he did not think 
South Carolina would stop her importations of slaves in 
any short time." Thus you see, Sir, that the "deliberate 
declarations " to which you allude were made in reference 
to the continuance of the African slave-trade, and not, as 
you suppose, to the catching of fugitive slaves. Two New 
England gentlemen of the committee yielded to these dec- 
larations, and sacrificed conscience and humanity for the 
sake of the Union, and the consideration that what enriched 
a part enriched the whole. Happily, in this case. Southern 
bluster was met by Southern bluster, and it is owing to 
Virginia, and not to the virtue and independence of New 
England, that the Constitution was rescued from the infamy 
of granting a solemn and perpetual guarantee to an ac- 
cursed commerce. 

In Virginia, the slaves, as Mr. Ellsworth remarked, mul- 
tiplied so fast, that it was cheaper to raise than import them. 
She was then, as now, a breeding State for the Southern 
markets. Hence, her delegates were as ready to bluster for 
protection, as the South Carolina delegates were for a free 
trade in men and women. Of course, the motives assigned 



13 

were patriotic, not selfish. Mr. Randolph "could never 
agree to the clause as it stands. lie would sooner risk 
THE Constitution." {Madison Papers, p. 139C.) Mr. 
Madison would not consent to the continuance of the traffic 
till ISOS. " Twenty years will produce all the mischief 
that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. 
So long a term will be more dishonorable to the American 
character, than to say nothing about it in the Constitution." 
{Madison Papers, p. 1427.) Mr. Mason from Virginia de- 
nounced the traffic as "infernal." {Madison Papers, p. 
1390.) The result of all these threats on each side was, as 
usual, a compromise, by which Congress was prohibited 
from suppressing the foreign and internal commerce in slaves 
for twenty years, and was left at liberty to do as it might 
see fit, after that period. After twenty years the foreign 
trade was suppressed, and North and South Carolina and 
Georgia remained in the Union ! Virginia, as well as the 
other Slave States, is greatly interested in the home slave- 
trade, and that has 7iot been suppressed, although Congress 
has full power over it. 

It does not appear from Mr. Madison's report what re- 
ply was made in the Convention to the Virginia objections, 
but in his speech in the Convention of his own State, he 
tells us, — " The gentlemen from South Carolina and Geor- 
gia argued in this manner : We have now liberty to import 
this species of property, and much of the property now 
possessed had been purchased or otherwise acquired in 
contemplation of improving it by the assistance of im- 
ported slaves. What would be the consequence of hinder- 
ing us in this point ? The slaves of Virginia would rise 
in value, and we should be obliged to go to your markets." 
{EllioWs Debates, III. 454.) Certainly, Sir, these South 
Carolina and Georgia delegates were " very wise men," 
and their predictions are now history, and the planters of 
Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana buy 
slaves of the Virginia breeders. But what shall I say of 
the wise men from the East ? This horrible compromise, 



14 

this guarantee of the African slave-trade for twenty years, 
was carried by the votes of the Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut delegates, and would have been defeated, had 
they had the courage and virtue to have voted against it. 

I have indulged in this long digression, to show that the 
clause in the Constitution respecting fugitive slaves was 
not, as you represent it, the great compromise of the Con- 
stitution, the key-stone of the Union, and that our slave- 
holding fathers were not, as you suppose, greatly per- 
plexed, nor their consciences deeply wounded, by the ex- 
istence of slavery in all the States of the confederacy with 
one exception. Having disposed of your history, I return 
to your logic. 

Whether the constitutional injunction to surrender fugi- 
tive slaves was a compromise or not, is of no practical im- 
portance. The clause speaks for itself, and prescribes no 
mode by which the title of the claimant shall be ascertained, 
while it expressly implies that the title shall be established 
before the surrender is made. Hence, the fair presumption 
is that the title to a man shall be proved, with at least as 
much certainty and formality as the title to a horse. Had 
you, Sir, in your law, provided that a Virginian shall not 
come to Boston, and there seize and carry off a husband, 
wife, or child but by the same process^ and on as strong 
evidence as he may now seize and carry off a horse which 
you claim as your own, instead of finding your name a 
byword and a reproach, you would have been honored and 
applauded by your fellow-citizens, and returned to Congress 
by a triumphant vote ; nor is there a syllable in the Consti- 
tution which prohibits or discountenances such a mode of 
deciding the title to a human being. It is in vain, then, 
Sir, that you plead your " constitutional obligation " in jus- 
tification of your most detestable law. But, as if one 
wrong could justify another, you plead in your excuse the 
law of 1793, and you ask in your simplicity of those who 
condemn your law if they do not perceive that they are 
" denouncing their fathers." Well, Sir, were our fathers 



15 

infallible? Pity it is, Sir, that you were not on the floor 
of Congress when that body declared the African slave- 
trade to be PIRACY. You might then, Sir, have risen in 
your place, and inquired, " Do you not perceive that you 
are denouncing yonr fathers, who were very wise men, and 
M'ho guaranteed for twenty years the very traflic wliich 
you now proclaim to be piracy?" Pity it is. Sir, that 
you did not stand by the side of your patron on Plymouth 
Rock, and whisper in his ear, " Do you not perceive that 
you are denouncing our fathers ? " when he declared, " In 
the sight of our law the African slave-trader is a pirate 
and a felon, and in the sight of Heaven an offender be- 
yond the ordinary depth of human guilt." Mr. Webster 
is better versed in constitutional history than you are, and 
he well knew that some of our fathers "deliberately de- 
clared they would not enter a Union " in which they were 
to be debarred from pursuing this piratical, felonious, guilty 
traffic. Our fathers were mostly slaveholders, and yet you, 
Sir, unconsciously denounce both their morality and intel- 
ligence, when you affirm the institution of slavery to be 
" wrong and unwise." And yet all who presume to find 
fault with your crnel, unjust, wicked law are guilty for- 
sooth of denouncing their fathers! 

You tell us that the Convention of 1787 ^^ agreed that 
the new Constitution should have 7iothing to do with slav- 
ery.^^ I have not been so fortunate as to find the record of 
this agreement, but if such a compact was indeed made, 
then seldom, if ever, has a solemn covenant been more 
grossly and wickedly violated. Is it. Sir, in virtue of this 
agreement, that you voted to fine and imprison every con- 
scientious, humane citizen who may refuse, at the com- 
mand of a minion of a commissioner, to join in a slave 
hunt ? Did this agreement confer on the holders of slaves 
an enlarged representation in Congress ? Was it in pursu- 
ance of this agreement that the importation of slaves was 
guaranteed for twenty years? Did this agreement author- 
ize the Federal government to enter into negotiations with 



16 

Great Britain and Mexico for a mutual surrender of runa- 
way slaves ? Was it in pursuance of this same agreement, 
that our government negotiated with Russia and Spain to 
prevent emancipation in Cuba, — a traitorous conspiracy 
with despots against the rights of man ? How, Sir, was 
this agreement ilkistrated, when Daniel Webster, as Secre- 
tary of State under John Tyler of glorious memory, made a 
demand on Great Britain for the surrender of the slaves of 
the Creole, who had gallantly achieved their liberty, and 
taken refuge in the West Indies ? How comes it. Sir, that 
under this agreement an act of Congress secures to the 
Slave States officers in the navy in proportion to the num- 
ber of their slaves? How is it, that under this agreement 
colored men are seized in the District of Columbia, under 
" the exclusive jurisdiction " of the Federal government on 
the suspicion of being slaves, and, when that suspicion is 
rebutted by the non-appearance of any claimant, are sold 
as slaves for life, to pay their jail-fees ? Perhaps it would 
be denouncing our fathers, to say that Messrs. Webster and 
Cass may search the archives of Austria in vain for any act 
so utterly diabolical as this, perpetrated by a government 
which it was agreed " should have nothing to do with slav- 
ery." Was it to carry out this famous agreement that 
the Federal government officially declared through its 
Secretary, Mr. Calhoun, that Texas was annexed to pre- 
serve the institution of slavery from the perils that threat- 
ened it ? 

Once more, Sir. We all know that the slaveholders re- 
gard the free blacks as dangerous to the subordination of 
their slaves, and are contemplating their forcible removal. 
Think you. Sir, Mr. Webster was mindful of the agree- 
ment you have discovered, when, on the 7th of last March, 
in his place in the Senate, he proposed his magnificent 
scheme of taxing the whole nation untold millions to give 
additional security to property in human beings? "If," 
said the Massachusetts Senator, " any gentleman from the 
South shall propose a scheme of colonization to be carried 



17 

on by this government upon a large scale, for the traiisjior- 
tation of free colored people to any colony or any place in 
the world, I should be ({uite disposed to incur almost any 
degree of expense to accomplish the object." The mag- 
nitude of the scheme, and the cost at which it is to be ac- 
complished, arc thus hinted : — " There have been received 
into the treasury of the United States eiguty millions of 
dollars, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands ceded 
by Virginia. If the residue should be sold at the same 
rate, the whole aggregate will exceed two hundred mil- 
lions of dollars. If Virginia and the South see fit to 
adopt any proposition to relieve themselves from the free 
people of Color among them, they have my free consent 
that the government shall pay them any sum of money out 
of the proceeds which may be adecpiate for the purpose." 
Will you, Sir, please to point out the article of the agree- 
ment of 1787, which, while it restricts Congress from hav- 
ing any thing to do with slavery, sanctions an appropriation 
not exceeding two hundred millions of dollars, for the pur- 
pose of strengthening the institution of slavery, by reliev- 
ing the slaveholders from the presence of free people of 
color, and forcibly transporting to any j)lace in the world 
hundreds of thousands of native-born Americans, who have 
as good a constitutional right to the pursuit of life, liberty, 
and happiness on their native soil, as Mr. Webster himself? 
Mr. Webster, it seems, now views the subject of negro col- 
onization in precisely the same light that he did thirty 
years since, although his intentions on this, as on various 
other points, have undergone marvellous changes. We 
learn from a Massachusetts paper [Congregationalist, G 
July, 1849), that this gentleman was in 1822 appointed by 
a public meeting to draft a constitution for the State Coloni- 
zation Society. After considerable discussion in the com- 
mittee he rose and said, "I must leave. I understand the 
whole project. It is a scheme of the slaveholders to get 
rid of their free negroes. I will have nothing to do with 
it." 

3 



18 

And how, Sir, as a member of Congress, have you ful- 
filled this agreement to have nothing to do with slavery ? 
Not only have you required " good citizens," when com- 
manded, to hunt and catch slaves, but you have even fixed 
a money value on every slave. If a master fails to recover 
his fugitive slave through the agency, "direct or indirect," 
of any citizen, you give him an action for damages. In 
all other oases of trespass, the damages sustained by the 
plaintiff are assessed by a jury according to the evidence. 
You kindly save the master the trouble of proving the 
value of his lost property, and give him out of the pockets 
of the defendant *^ 1,000, no matter whether the slave was 
sick or well, young or old. If a woman escapes with a 
child at the breast, the master is to have $ 2,000 ! Recol- 
lect, Sir, this is for damages to the slaveholder ; the trespass- 
er is to pay to the government, which was to have nothing 
to do with slavery, another thousand dollars, and to be in- 
carcerated six months. Either, Sir, you have wholly mis- 
taken the nature of the "agreement," or the slaveholders, 
through the aid of their Northern auxiliaries, have, in defi- 
ance of the agreement, rendered the Federal government a 
mighty engine in protecting, extending, and perpetuating 
the stupendous iniquity of human bondage. 

Your first excuse for voting for the recent slave-catching 
law, after relying on your " constitutional obligation," is, 
that it is ^^practically more favorable to the fugitive than 
the laro of 1793 " ! ! ! The Southern lawyers, then, who 
drafted the bill, were a set of blunderers, and your constitu- 
ents are blockheads for blaming you for legislating against 
human rights, when, in fact, you were loosening the bonds 
of the oppressed, and facilitating escape from the prison- 
house. Your assertion may well excite astonishment at 
the South as well as the North, till your proof is known, 
and then, indeed, astonishment will be exchanged for ridi- 
cule. You tell us, " the evidence of such an assertion may 
be found in the fact, that by the old law every magistrate 
in Massachusetts, amounting to several hundreds, and so in 



19 

the other States, were authorized and required to cause the 
arrest of any fugitive, examine into his case, and dehver 
him to the claimant, if he was proved to be a slave ; while 
under the new law that power is limited to the justices of 
the United States courts, and to the commissioners ap- 
pointed by them, not exceeding, perhaps, on an average, 
six or eight persons in each State." So it seems the slave- 
catchers had formerly no difficulty in finding a magistrate 
among hundreds to aid them, but that now, before they 
hunt a slave, they must hunt and catch a United States 
judge, or a commissioner of six or eight in a whole State. 
Truly a hard case, and yet the slaveholders themselves set 
the very trap in which they have been caught, and thus it 
is that, through their folly, and your generosity in not 
pointing out to them the blunder they were committing, 
the new law is more favorable to the fugitive than the 
old one. Surely, Sir, it could not have been more perilous 
to the young West Indian judge to meddle with "reasons," 
than it is for you. . Either, Sir, you voted for the law 
without reading it, or you have forgotten its provision. Be 
assured, the Southern lawyers were as well acquainted as 
yourself with the fact, that a few individuals, termed 
'■' commissioners," had been appointed by the United States 
courts to perform certain ministerial acts ; and that, as these 
men were now to be promoted to the office of slave-catch- 
ing judges, they would be wholly inadequate in number to 
lend efficient aid to the hunters of men. Hence, they in- 
serted in the third section of the bill, the following enact- 
ment, which has strangely escaped your recollection, viz. : 
— "And it is further enacted, that the Circuit Courts 
of the United States, and the Superior Courts of each or- 
ganized Territory of the United States, shall from time to 

time ENLARGE THE NUMBER OF COMMISSIONERS witll a vicW 

to afford reasonable facilities to reclaim fugitives from labor, 
and to the prompt discharge of the duties imposed by this 
act." So that, instead of six or eight commissioners in a 
State, we are to have as many hundreds, if needed. Nor 



20 

is this all. By the second section, the power possessed by 
the Circuit Courts to appoint commissioners is for the first 
time conferred on the Territorial courts, so that there shall 
be no lack of slave-catching judges in Oregon, Utah, and 
New Mexico. Instead of your six or eight commissioners 
in a State, your law contemplates that there shall be one or 
more in eadi county ; for the fifth section provides, that, 
" the better to enable the said commissioners to execute 
their duties faithfully and efficiently, they are here- 
by authorized and empowered, within their counties re- 
spectively,''^ to appoint one or more persons to execute their 
warrants. So it seems we are to have an unlimited num- 
ber of judges and executioners. These executioners, ex- 
pressly appointed to catch slaves, and of course among the 
most worthless and degraded of the community, are one 
and all invested with the power of a high sheriflf to call 
out the posse coniitatus, not merely in his own county, but 
in every hamlet in tlie State, and require " good citizens," 
under pain of fine and imprisonment, to join him in his ex- 
ecrable hunt. Really, Sir, your " evidence " that the new 
law is more favorable to the fugitive than the old one falls 
short of demonstration. 

You thus apologize for not giving the alleged fugitive a 
trial by jury. " There was no more trial by jury provided 
for under the old law than under the new law. The claim 
of a jury trial is entirely jiciv ; never thought of till modern 
discussions of the subject begun. For fifty-seven years our 
fathers and we have been living under the laws which pro- 
vided no such thing, and now one which makes no such 
provision is denounced in unmeasured terms as cruel and 
inhuman. Where have we all been living for half a cen- 
tury ? " Surel}'', Sir, it is a most logical reason for not 
changing a wicked law, that it has been in force for fifty- 
seven years. Strange that the legislators of Massachusetts 
did not perceive the force of this reasonmg when they 
abolished the laws for hanging witches and whipping 
duakers. Permit me, Sir, to ask, Where had you been liv- 



21 

ina: when yoii declared it to be the (hity of Congress to give 
the fugitive a trial by jury, ahhough for fifty-seven years 
such a trial had been denied him? You probably forgot, 
Sir, when giving the above "reason," that, not long before 
you took your seat in Congress, you had, as a member of 
the Massachusetts Legislature, voted for the following reso- 
lution, viz. : — " We hold it to be tlie duty of that body 
[Congress] to pass such laws only in regard thereto as will 
be maintained by the public sentiment of the free States, 
where such laws are to be enforced, and which shall espe- 
cially secure all persons, whose surrender may be claimed 
as having escaped from labor and service in other States, 
the right of having the validity of such claim determined 
by a jury in the State where such claim is made." So it 
seems that, while in Boston, you esteemed it the especial 
duty of Congress to grant the fugitive a trial by jury, but 
that in the atmosphere of Washington you acquired new 
views of moral philosophy. 

Sutler me, Sir, also to inquire. Where had Mr. Webster 
been "living for half a century," when, on the 3d of last 
June, he introduced into the Senate a bill amendatory of 
the act of 1793, granting the alleged fugitive a trial by 
jury whenever he shall make oath that he is not the slave 
of the claimant ? 

Another of your ''reasons" is, that your law does not 
suspend the habeas corpus, and in proof of its innocence in 
this respect, you refer to the opinion of " legal authority of 
the highest kind," viz. Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. It 
is very true that the words habeas corpus are omitted in 
your law, as the word slave is in the Constitution, but in 
neither case is the omission of any practical importance. 
You must be aware, Sir, that whenever a person is in the 
custody of another, if sufficient ground be shown to render 
it probable that the custody is illegal, the writ is granted 
as a matter of right. I3ut why is it granted? That the 
court may at its discretion, according to circumstances, re- 
mand or discharge the prisoner. Take away from the 



22 

court the discretionary power to discharge, and the writ is 
rendered an idle form. Your law, you say, does not sus- 
pend the habeas corpus : it is guiltless of such an enormity. 
A man who is carrying off one of our citizens in chains, 
may indeed be served with the writ, and he brings his 
prisoner before the court, and he produces a paper for 
which he paid S 10, and reads from your law, that this 
paper, called a certificate, "shall be conclusive," and "shall 
prevent all molestation of said person or persons by any 
process issued by any court, judge, or magistrate, or other 
person whomsoever.'' It is because the word process, in- 
stead of habeas corpus, is used, that your law does not sus- 
pend the writ of freedom ! In vain may the prisoner plead 
that he is not the person mentioned in the certificate : in 
vain may he offer to show that the certificate is a forgery ; 
in vain may he urge that the man who signed the certifi- 
cate was not a commissioner. The little piece of paper 
costing ten dollars is to save the slave-catcher from " edl 
molestation," not because the writ of habeas corpus is sus- 
pended, — 0, no ! but in consequence of the words '•' any 
process " ! 

You refer to two objections, which you say are made to 
your law, and endeavour to refute them ; viz. the onerous 
obligations imposed upon the marshal, and the penalties 
attached to an attempt "to assist in the rescue of the slave 
after he has been proved to be such." You have evinced 
your discretion in confining yourself to only four objections 
made to your law ; viz. the denial of a jury trial, the sus- 
pension of the habeas corpus, the duties of the marshal, 
and the penalties imposed on an attempt to rescue the slave 
a/ifer judgment. With what success, and with what "rea- 
sons," you have combated the first two has already been 
seen. As to the last two, they scarcely merit an answer, 
and hence you have selected them. If the obligations of 
the marshal are onerous, he has voluntarily assumed them 
by accepting the office. If, in a civilized country, a man 
attempts forcibly to rescue a prisoner in the custody of the 



23 

law, he must expect to be punished. There are many 
weighty objections to your law which you have not 
thought it expedient to notice. Permit me to supply your 
omission, and to tell you why your law is so intensely odi- 
ous. And here let me again remind you of the true issue 
between you and the people. It is not now the constitu- 
tional power of Congress under the decision of the Supreme 
Court to pass a law for the recovery of fugitive slaves, 
— this is conceded. The odium you have experienced, 
and against which you have appealed to the public, is 
caused by your having voted for a law which, in its details, 
violates the Constitution, and outrages justice and humani- 
ty. Throughout your long and labored apology, you avoid 
grappling with these charges. You vindicate the denial of 
a jury trial only on the ground that it has been denied for 
fifty-seven years, and on the authority of Mr. Crittenden 
affirm that the habeas corpus is not suspended ; but you 
avoid the constitutional and moral objections urged against 
your law. 

By the Constitution, fugitive slaves are to be restored to 
those, and those only, who are legally entitled to their ser- 
vices. The means of ascertaining whether a man is a 
slave, whether he has fled from his master, and whether 
the claimant is legally entitled to him, are not defined by 
the Constitution. It is now intrusted to the discretion of 
Congress to specify these means, but of course that discre- 
tion ought to be exercised in accordance with the Consti- 
tution, with justice, and with humanity. The complaint 
against you is. that you have voted for a law which out- 
rages them all, and against this complaint you have failed 
to offer the shadow of a vindication. 

A Virginian comes to Boston, and there seizes one of the 
inhabitants as his slave. The man claimed declares the 
claim to be false and fraudulent. Here, then, is an issue 
both of law and of fact between two men equally entitled 
to the protection of law ; for the man claimed is on every 
presumption of law and justice to be regarded as free, till 



24 

the contrary is proved. The issue hetween these two men 
is. I have said, one of fact and of law. Is the person 
seized the man he is said to be ? This is a question of 
fact. Admitting his identity, is he a slave, and, if so. does 
he belons to the claimant ? These are both questions of 
law. restins upon facts to be proved. Those familiar with 
the reports of Southern courts know that the title to slaves 
is a frequent matter of litigation, involving intricate ques- 
tions respecting the validity of wills, the construction of 
deeds, the partition of estates, and the claims of creditors. 
By carrying a slave into a free State, the owner forfeits his 
title to him while there, and cannot reclaim him ; and 
hence the acts of the claimant himself may be involved in 
the issue. And now, Sir. I ask, have you ever known, or 
can you conceive of. any issue at law respecting the title 
to property so awfully momentous to a defendant as the 
one we are considering ? "U'ere your son or daughter the 
defendant in such an issue, would you not rejoice to pur- 
chase a favorable judgment by the contribution of the Icist 
cent of your great wealth : Let us. then, proceed to in- 
quire what provision you. in the fear of God and the love 
of justice and humcinity. have made for the trial of this 
tremendous issue, — an issue on the result of which all the 
hopes of a fellow-man for the life that is, and for that which 
is to come, are suspended. 

In the first place, What is the pecuniary value of the 
plaintiff's claim to himself? — for it would be an insult to 
humanity to estimate in dollars and cents the blessings of 
liberty and of the conjugal and parental relations to the 
unhappy defendant. You have yourself fixed the value 
of the plaintiff's claim at one thousand dollars. So far, 
then, the issue is. by your own showing, within the con- 
stitutional guarantee of trial by jury in all suits at common 
law where the matter in controversy is of the value of 
twenty dollars. But is the claim made by the plaintiff -"a 
suit at common law • : What is a suit 7 The Supreme 
Court thus answers the question : — " We understand 



25 

it [a suit] to be the prosecution or pursuit of some claim, 
demand, or rcijnest. In law language, it is the prosecution 
of some demand in a court of justice." (6 Wlicatou^ 407.) 

It seems, then, that the Virginian, in claiming an inhab- 
itant of Boston as his slave, in fact brings a suit against 
him for services due worth one thousand dollars. Now 
remember, Sir, the fugitive is not to be delivered up, as a 
mass of flesh, or inanimate matter, belonging to the claim- 
ant, but as a debtor, in the phraseology of your own law, 
" owing service or labor." The suit is brought for service 
or labor due, and the Constitution provides that the person 
so owing service or labor shall be delivered to him to 
whom the same is "rfwe." And now, is this suit for ser- 
vice due " a suit at common law " ? Again let the Supreme 
Court answer, " The phrase common law, found in" this 
clause [the clause guaranteeing a jury trial], is used in con- 
tradistinction to equity and admiralty and maritime jiuis- 
diction. It is well known, that, in civil causes in courts of 
equity and admiralty, juries do not intervene, and that 
courts of equity use the trial by jury only in extraordinary 
cases, to inform the conscience of the court. When, there- 
fore, we find that the amendment requires that the right of 
trial by jury shall be preserved in suits at common law, 
the natural conclusion is, that this distinction was present 
to the minds of the framers of the amendment. By com- 
mon law, they meant what the Constitution denon)inated, 
in the third article, 'law'; not merely suits which the 
common law recognized among its old and settled proceed- 
ings, but suits in which legal rights were to be ascertained 
and determined, in contradistinction to those where equita- 
ble rights alone were recognized, and equitable remedies 

were administered In a just sense, the amendment, 

then, may be construed to embrace all suits which are not 
of equity and admiralty jurisdiction, whatever may be the 
peculiar form which they may assume to settle legal 
rights." (3 Peters, 446.) 

If there be meaning in words, these authorities settle the 
4 



26 

case, and your law is in palpable violation of the amend- 
ment to the Constitution securing a trial by jury in suits 
at common law where the matter in controversy exceeds 
twenty dollars in value. Think not. Sir. that I am mis- 
representing the Supreme Court. I know well that the 
dicta I have quoted have reference to xchite men, and that 
they have been virtuallv set aside in decisions respecting 
black men. I well know, that, in our model republic, 
law and justice and morality are all cutaneous. But ad- 
mittiuff that the Supreme Court have stultified themselves, 
and rirtually denied, that, where a suit was brought for 
the services of a black man, the Constitution required a 
jury trial, recollect. Sir. that not in one single instance has 
the court decided that the Constitution prohibited such a 
trial. But if not prohibited, then Congress are permitted 
to accord such a trial, and both you and Mr. JVebster have 
declared that Co7igTess had a right to grant such a trial, 
and ought to grant it. In voting, therefore, for a law 
denving such a trial, you made a voluntary surrender to 
the slaveholder of the security which such a trial would 
have afforded to multitudes o( your poor, ignorant, op- 
pressed fellow-men. For this act of cruelty and injustice, 
committed against your own late ccnviction of duty, what 
is your justification? Wiiy. that the blacks had been 
already deprived of the right of trial by jury fifty-seven 
years ! 

Let us now see what tribunal you have substituted for 
a jury in the trial of one of the most momentous issues 
that can ensase the attention of a court of justice. You 
have provided for the appointment of an indefinite number 
of judges, each of whom is to have exclusive jurisdiction 
of these issues, and from whose judgment there is to be no 
appeal. The Constitution declares, •' The judges, both 
of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their ofiices 
durins good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive 
for their services a compensation, which shall not be dimin- 
ished during their continuance in office." These judges 



27 

are appointed by the Senate, on the nomination of the 
President Your herd of judges, called commissioners, are 
appointed by the courts, and hold office during pleasure, 
and instead of receiving a salary, are rewarded by a rule 
the infamy of which, it is believed, belongs to your law 
exclusively, — a rule which doubles their compensation 
whenever they decide in favor of the rich plaintiff, and 
against the poor and friendless defendant. But perhaps 
you will deny that these men are judges ; for, if judges, 
their appointment is palpably unconstitutional. Let us 
hear the Supreme Court, at a time when it was deemed 
expedient to maintain that the persons who executed the 
law of 1793 were judges. " It is plain, that, where a 
claim is made by the owner out of possession for the de- 
livery of a slave, it must be made, if made at all, agaivst 
sojne other person ; and inasmuch as the right is a right of 
property, capable of being recognized and asserted by pro- 
ceedings before a court of justice beticeen parties adverse to 
each other ^ it constitutes, in the strictest sense, a controversy 
between parties, and a case arising under the Constitution 
of the United States, within the express delegation of ju- 
dicial power given by that instrument."' (16 Peters, 616.) 
Hence your commissioners are, in the strictest sense, 
judges, exercising " judicial power "' delegated by the 
Constitution. 

You pronounce Mr. Crittenden " legal authority of the 
highest kind." This legal authority understands the sixth 
section of your law as providing that each commissioner 
"shall have judicial power and jurisdiction to hear, exam- 
ine, and decide the case in a summary manner." Now, if 
a man, having judicial power and jurisdiction to decide 
controversies between parties adverse to each other, in con- 
troversies arising under the Constitution and within the 
express delegation of judicial power given by that instru- 
ment, is not a judge, do tell us who is one. Once more. 
Sir, Mr. Crittenden says, " The legal authority of every 
tribunal of exclusive jurisdiction, where no appeal lies, is 



28 

of necessity conclusive upon every tribunal ; and therefore 
the ji.idgraent of the tribunal created by this act is conclu- 
sive upon all other tribunals.'" So your commissioner is 
not only a judge, but he constitutes a tribunal of exclusive 
jurisdiction, and his judgment is binding even upon the 
Supreme Court of the United States. And yet, Sir, you 
must deny that this omnipotent commissioner is a judge, 
or you must admit, that, in the mode of his appointment, 
you have flagrantly violated the Constitution of your 
country. 

It has been most wickedly asserted by our proslavery 
presses and our proslavery politicians, that the surrender 
of fugitives from labor and fugitives from justice are simi- 
lar proceedings. The surrender of a fugitive slave in- 
volves two questions, that of identity and that of property ; 
and the law makes the decision of the commissioner on 
both points final and conclusive upon every State and 
Federal court in the land. The surrender of a fugitive 
criminal involves only the question of personal identity. 
The Governor of the State issues his warrant for the ap- 
prehension and delivery of a certain person proved to him 
to be charged with felony. If the officer arrests the wrong 
person, he does it at his peril, and a writ of habeas corpus 
would immediately release the person wrongfully arrested. 
Again, it is most fraudulently maintained, that, if the wrong 
person is by the commissioner adjudged a slave, he may 
sue for his freedom in a Southern court ! Should he do so, 
the exhibition of the commissioner's certificate is by law 
declared to be conclusive upon all tribunals. But even 
supposing that a Southern court, in defiance of law, should 
go behind the certificate, how is a free colored person from 
the North, working under the lash on a Mississippi planta- 
tion, to prove his freedom: How is he to fee a lawyer? 
How is he to get into court ? If once there, where are 
his witnesses ? They are his friends and acquaintances of 
his own color residing in the Xorth. How are they to be 
summoned to Mississippi ? Should they venture to enter 



29 

the State, they would be imprisoned, and perhaps sold into 
slavery ; or even if permitted to enter the court-room, their 
testimony would by law be excluded, against the claims 
of a white man. How despicably profligate, then, is the 
assumption of the advocates of your law, that any injus- 
tice committed under it would be repaired by Southern 
courts ! 

It was not enough, it seems, that the wretched defend- 
ant in this momentous issue should be subjected to the 
jurisdiction of a judge unknown to the Constitution, hold- 
ing his office by a prohibited tenure, incapable of being 
impeached, and bribed to decide in favor of the plaintiff 
by the promise of double fees, but the very trial allowed 
him must be a burlesque on all the forms and principles 
of juridical justice. The plaintiff, without notice to the 
defendant, prepares himself for trial, and when his affida- 
vits or witnesses are all ready, he seizes the unsuspecting 
victim in the street, and puts him mstanter on his defence. 
Had the wretched man been accused of some atrocious 
crime, he might have demanded bail, and would have been 
permitted to go at large to seek for counsel, to look for 
witnesses, and to prepare for trial at some future day, of 
which he would have due notice. But no such privilege 
is allowed a man who is accused of owing service. One 
of your commissioners has already decided that the law 
does not permit him to bail the prisoner. The slave power 
rides in triumph over all the barriers erected by the wis- 
dom of ages for the protection of human rights. The 
defendant is brought, generally in irons, before your com- 
missioner judge, who is required " to hear and determine 
the case of the claimmxt m a summary manner." The 
law seems not even to imagine the possibility of any de- 
fence being made on the part of the defendant. It makes 
no provision for such a defence, — no assignment of coun- 
sel, no summons for witnesses. We shall see presently, 
that if the plaintiff makes out a prima facie title, satisfac- 
tory to the commission, it is all the law requires. Let me 



30 

now call your attention to the practical working of your 
diabolical law. A man named Rose was lately seized at 
Detroit, and brought before a commissioner as a fugitive 
slave. I copy from the newspaper report. " Mr. Joy 
(counsel for defendant) moved a postponement of the trial 
to a future day, to enable Rose to produce his papers to 
establish his right to freedom, which papers he had sworn 
were in Cincinnati. The counsel for the claimant denied 
that the commissioner had any authority under the law to 
grant a postponement. The commissioner agreed with 
the counsel for the plaintiff, that he had no authority to 
postpone the trial ; and he further declared, that, even were 
the papers hy which Rose was manumitted present, he 
could not under the law receive them in evidenceJ^ 

Utterly devilish as was this decision, it was sound 
law. The plaintiff' had proved his title satisfactorily, and 
this being done, the commissioner was bound by the ex- 
press words of the law to grant the certificate. He had 
no right to admit rebutting evidence. It was sufficient to 
prove that the prisoner had been the slave of the claim- 
ant's father, and that the claimant was the heir at law of 
his father. This of itself was satisfactory, and therefore 
the commissioner had no right to admit in evidence the 
very deed of manumission granted by the father to the 
slave. The framers of the law had been as explicit as 
they dared to be. " Upon satisfactory proof being made 
by deposition or affidavit, to be taken and certified. &c., 
or by other satisfactory testimony [of course, in writing, 
and ex parte], and with proof, also by. affidavit, of the 
identity of the person," &c., the defendant is to be sur- 
rendered. Not a hint is given that any testimony may 
be received to rebut the satisfactory proof given by the 
plaintiff. You have, moreover, Sir, provided a species of 
evidence never before heard of in the trial of an issue. 
By the tenth section, the claimant may go before a judge 
or court in Texas, and there make proof by affidavit that 
his slave has escaped. Whereupon, the court or judge 



31 

is to certify tliat tlie proof is satisfactory. A record of this 
satisfactory proof, together with a description of the fugi- 
tive, is to be made, and a certified transcri[)t of this record, 
"being exhibited to any judge, commissioner, or other offi- 
cer authorized," «fcc., '■^ shall be held and taken to be full 
and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the 
service or labor of the person escaping is due to the party 
in such record meiitionod.'' Here all defence is taken 
from the defendant. Should he summon a host of wit- 
nesses to prove his freedom, not one could be heard ; 
should he olTer a bill of sale from the claimant to another, 
it could not be received ; should he produce a deed of 
manumission, acknowledged and certified in a Southern 
court, it would be waste paper. And thus a man's free- 
dom is to be sacrificed on an affidavit made a thousand 
miles off. What, Sir, would you think of a law that 
would authorize the seizure and sale of your property to 
satisfy a debt which any man in California might thiidc 
projier to swear, before a Californian judge, was due from 
yon to him ? 

Such, Sir, is the trial which you, the representative of 
Boston, a descendant of the Pilgrims, and "a gentleman of 
property and standing," have accorded to the poor and 
oppressed. Did the Constitution require such a prostitu- 
tion of justice, such an outrage of humanity, at your hands? 
I need not be told that some of your commissioners have 
not construed your law as strictly as did the Detroit func- 
tionary. Thanks to the force of public opinion, and to the 
zeal of some benevolent lawyers, whose hearts were not 
padded with cotton, in some instances defendants have 
been permitted to call witnesses in their behalf ; and some 
regard has been paid to the ordinary principles of justice. 
But in all such instances, the spirit of the law and the 
intentions of its frarners have been frustrated. 

And now let us listen to your '-reason" for justifying all 
the atrocities and abominations of your law. You gravely 
tell us, " The entire population of the North has acqui- 



32 

esced in the law of 1793. \rithout thinking itself exposed 
to the charge of barbarity, and I have only to say. that I 
do not think the charge any more just novr." Certainly, 
Sir, the young colonial judge could not have given a rea- 
son less logical or satisfactory. You must be an inatten- 
tive observer of passing events, if you are ignorant that the 
law of 1793 has a^ain and again been denounced as in- 
iquitous, that some of the States have prohibited their offi- 
cers from asslsiins in its execution, that numberless peti- 
tions have been presented to Congress for its repesll, and 
that you yourself, instead of acquiescing in it. solemnly de- 
clared it to be the duty of Congress so far to alter the law, 
as to grant the alleged fugitive a trial by jury. Yet the 
law of 1793. wicked as it was. was justice and mercy 
compared with yours. The trials under that were almost 
invariably before judges of the State courts, not appointed 
like your commissioners for the vile and only purpose of 
reducing their fellow-men to bondage. There judges were 
not confined to ex parte evidence, were not compelled to 
receive •• as full and conclusive "" amdavits made in distant 
States, and by unknown persons. For the most part, they 
honestlv endeavoured, by a patient investigation according 
to the ordinary rules of evidence, and by holding the plain- 
tiff to strict legal proof, to supply the want of a jury. 

David Paul Brown. Esq.. of Philadelphia, in a letter of 
last November, affirms that for the last thirty years he has 
been engaged as counsel in almost every important fugitive 
case brought before the judges and courts of Philadelphia, 
and he tells us. " thanks to those upright and impartial and 
independent judses by whom the rights of the parties were 
finally determined,"' he knows of no instance in which a 
colored person was. in his opinion, wrongfully surrendered. 
But he adds. •• I have known htndriids who have been 
ii legally and unjustly claimed." This experienced lawyer, 
commenting on your law, justly says it allows - ex "parte 
testimony to be received against the alleged fugitive, which, 
upon no principle known to the common law, could be re- 



33 

ceived upon the claim to a horse or a dog.-' About four 
weeks after the date of this letter, Mr. Brown was called to 
defend an alleged fugitive ''illegally and unjustly claimed," 
not before one of the "upright and impartial and indepen- 
dent " Pennsylvania judges, but before one of your ten- 
dollar slave-catching judges. I beg you to mark the result. 

On the 21st of December, a colored man was arrested in 
the street in Philadelphia, without warrant, and accused of 
stealing chickens. He was thrust into a carriage, driven to 
the State-House, carried into an upper room, and hand- 
cuffed. In this state he was detained till a commissioner 
arrived. The name of this executor of your law is worthy 
of remembrance. Edward D. Ingraham ought to be as 
much endeared to slave-catchers, as Judge Jeffries was to 
James the Second. 

By some means, the arrest became known, and counsel 
appeared for the prisoner. Your commissioner was in- 
formed that the prisoner had only been seized an hour and 
a half before, and had not heard the charge against him ; 
that his counsel had had no time to learn the plaintitTs 
case, nor to prepare for the defence ; that there were per- 
sons residing at a distance, some in New Jersey and some 
in Wilmington, who would be important witnesses in his 
behalf. On these grounds, a motion was made for a con- 
tinuance. And what, Sir, do you suppose was the reply 
made by the slave-catching judge to this motion ? " The 

HEARING IS TO BE A SUMMARY ONE : LET IT PROCEED." No 

doubt you fully participate in Mr. Webster's indignation 
against Austrian barbarity ; but see no barbarity in this ac- 
cursed proceeding against a colored American. The hear- 
ing did proceed, and James S. Price, on behalf of the plain- 
tiff, swore that the prisoner was Emery Rice, the man 
claimed, but knew nothing further about his being a slave, 
except that he had seen him riding the claimant's horse. 
Had heard it said the prisoner was a slave. This was the 
amount of the testimony on behalf of the claimant. Any 
honest jury, nay, any honest judge, would instantly have 
5 



34 

decided in favor of the prisoner. Not so Mr. Edward D. 
Ingraham. The counsel for the defendant asked again for 
a postponement, and founded the motion on the oath of the 
defendant, that he could procure six persons, naming them, 
to testify to his freedom. A delay of one hour was asked 
for. This was refused, and the judge (!) sent for a certifi- 
cate to sign. During the delay thus occasioned, one of the 
six persons named by the defendant appeared, and swore 
that he had known the prisoner all his life. That he was 
not Emery Rice, but Adam Gibson; that he was a free- 
man, having been manumitted by the will of his late mas- 
ter. Mr. Brown produced a copy of the will of the late 
master, and it so far confirmed the testimony of the wit- 
ness. Another person in the crowd now came forward, and 
swore that he also knew the prisoner, and that he was a 
free person, and that he was Adam Gibson. But all was 
in vain. The commissioner signed the certificate, and, 
with an obtuseness of intellect which marked him as a fit 
subject for a commission of lunacy, declared, " He had no 
doubt of the identity of the prisoner with the slave Emery 
Rice, and that all other proceedings imist be before the 
courts of Maryland, whither he would send him." * And 
so the prisoner, without seeing his wife and children, whom 
he had that morning parted from unsuspicious of danger 
and unconscious of crime, was hurried olf at the expense of 
our glorious model republic, under an escort of officers, 
who delivered him, not to the courts of Maryland, but to 
Mr. William S. Knight, the reputed owner. But Mr. 
Knight told the officers, " You have brought me a wrong 
man ; this is not Emery Rice ; this man is no slave of 
mine." And so Adam Gibson returned to Philadelphia, 
and is now a living illustration of the abominable iniquity 
of one of the most accursed laws to be found in the statute- 
book of any civilized nation. 

You do not think your law more barbarous than that of 

* See report in the JVeio York Tribune^ 25th December, 1850. 



35 

1793. Let me further enlighten you. Judge McLean of 
the Supreme Court, in his opinion delivered last May in 
the case of A^orris v. Neioton et al., remarks, — "In re- 
gard to the arrest of fugitives from labor, the law [act of 
1793] docs 7wt impose any active duties on our citizens 
generally " ; and he argues in defence of the law, that " it 
gives no one a just right to complain ; he has only to re- 
frain from an express violation of the law." In other 
words, the law only required individuals to be passive spec- 
tators of a horrible outrage, and did not compel them to be 
active participators in other men's villany. Now, what 
says your law ? Why, that every commissioner may ap- 
point as many official slave-catchers as he pleases, and that 
each of these menials may "summon and call to their aid 
the bystanders or posse cornitatus of the proper county, 
when necessary to insure a faithful observance of the 
clause of the Constitution referred to in conformity with 
the provisions of this act, and all good citizens are here- 
by COMMANDED TO AID AND ASSIST iu the prompt and efficient 
execution of this law, whenever their services may be re- 
quired." And what is the fate you have provided for the 
"good citizen," who, believing slavery to be sinful, cannot, 
in the fear of God, " aid and assist " in making a fellow- 
man a slave ? Any person " who shall aid, abet, or assist " 
the fugitive "directly or indirectly " (cunning words) to 
escape from such claimant, as, for instance, refusing to join 
in a slave-hunt when required, shall be fined not exceeding 
$ 1,000, be imprisoned six months, and pay the claimant 
S 1,000. I hope. Sir, you are now able to perceive that 
your law has a preeminence in barbarity over its predeces- 
sor. And now, Sir, please to recollect, that party disci- 
pline, aided by the influence of Messrs. Webster and Clay, 
and the factory and cotton interest of Boston and New York, 
could not procure for this atrocious law the votes of one 
half the members of the House of Representatives. Of 
two hundred and thirty-two members, only one hundred 
and nine dared to place their names on an enduring and 



36 

shameful record, while many basely deserted their seats, 
fearing alike to vote either for or against it. You, Sir, fol- 
lowing Mr. Webster's advice, "conquered your prejudices," 
and in company with two more Northern Whigs, one of 
them a native of Virginia, cast your vote for this bill of 
abominations. But, although you voted for the law, you 
do not wish your constituents to suppose you approved of 
it. " It will not, I trust, be inferred from any thing I have 
said, that I consider the law which has passed unexcep- 
tionable. There are amendments which I strongly desire 
to be introduced into it." What are the exceptionable fea- 
tures of the law, what are the amendments you desire, you 
refrain from specifying. But you tell us that you would 
have labored for these amendments "had it been possible, 
but every body knows that it was impracticable.''^ You 
allude to the previous question, which prevented both dis- 
cussion and amendments. But why, then, did you vote 
for an objectionable bill which could not be amended ? 
Here, again, we have one of your unfortunate reasons. 
" I deem conformity to the design of the Constitution more 
important than the objectionable details of the bill." So, 
by your own confession, had there been no previous ques- 
tion, you would have swallowed the bill with all its objec- 
tionable details, out of reverence for the design of the 
Constitution, although that design neither embraced nor 
required a single one of those details. Did you, Sir, vote 
against the previous question ? On this point you are si- 
lent, and the minutes afford no information ; but if you did, 
your vote was a most remarkable aberration from your pro- 
slavery course in Congress. After the previous question 
had been seconded, it was moved to lay the bill on the 
table. Had this motion been carried, you might have 
introduced another bill, omitting the " objectionable de- 
tails," but you voted with the slaveholders. The slave- 
holders then moved that the bill be read a third time. 
Had this been lost, there would have been a chance of 
correcting the "objectionable details." Again you voted 



37 

with the slaveholders, and a third time, also, on the main 
question. 

I will now, Sir, call your attention to the disastrous in- 
fluence which your law has exerted on the moral sense of 
the community. Says Coleridge, " To dogmatize a 
crime, that is, to teach it as a doctrine, is itself a crime." 
Of this crime of dogmatizing crime, Mr. Webster, and most 
of our cotton politicians, and, alas ! many of our fashiona- 
ble, genteel divines, are guilty ; nor are you innocent. Sir, 
who in yoTir law require " good citizens " to aid in hunting 
and enslaving their fellow-men. 

In former years, and before Mr. Webster had undergone 
his metamorphosis, he thus, in a speech at New York, ex- 
pressed himself in regard to the antislavery agitation at 
the North. "It [slavery] has arrested the religious feeling 
of the country ; it has taken strong hold of the consciences 
of men. He is a rash man indeed, little conversant with 
human nature, and especially has he a very erroneous esti- 
mate of the character of the people of this country, who 
supposes that a feeling of this kind is to he trifled with or 
despised^ This gentleman has become the rash man 
shadowed forth in his speech, and is trifling with and de- 
spising the religious feeling of the North. In his street 
speech in Boston, in favor of slave-hunting, he avowed 
that he was well aware that the return of fugitives "is a 
topic that must excite prejudices," and that the question for 
Massachusetts to decide was, "whether she will conquer 
her own prejudice." In his letter to the citizens of New- 
buryport, he sneeringly alludes to the " cry that there is a 
rule for the government of public men and private men 
which is superior to the Constitution," and he scornfully 
intimates that Mr. Horace Mann, who had objected to your 
law as wicked, would do well " to appeal at once, as others 
do, to that high authority which sits enthroned above the 
Constitution and the laws"; and he gives an extract from 
a nameless English correspondent, in which the writer re- 
marks, " Religion is an excellent thing except in politics," 



3S 

a maxim exceedingly palatable to very many of our politi- 
cians. Aware that the impiety of this sentiment was not 
exactly suited to the meridian of Massachusetts, he says 
his friend undoubtedly meant "a fantastical notion of re- 
ligion." Of course, he regards the religious prejudice 
against hunting and enslaving men as springing from a fan- 
tastic notion of religion. Yet, with a strange fatuity, he 
confesses that '• the teaching of Christ and his Apostles is 
a sure guide to duty in poJilics. as in any other concern of 
life,-' utterly oblivious of the fact, that the "higher law," 
which he ridicules, was proclaimed in that very teaching. 
Christ taught, '-Fear not them [magistrates] who kill the 
body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him 
who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." What 
taught the Apostles? ■• We must obey God, rather than 
man." Such teaching it was, that gave birth to "the no- 
ble army of martyrs,"' and this very teaching will induce 
multitudes of Christians at the present day to hazard fines 
and imprisonment rather than obey the wicked injunctions 
of your law. It was this same teaching which, on the pub- 
lication of your law, induced numerous ministers of Jesus 
Christ; and various ecclesiastical assemblies, to denounce it 
as wicked, and obedience to it as rebellion against God. 
This expression of religious sentiment alarmed both oiu: 
politicians and our merchants. How could the one expect 
Southern votes, or the other Southern trade, if the religious 
people at the North refused to catch slaves ? Hence arose 
a mighty outcry against the blending of religion with poli- 
tics, and most fearful were the anathemas against the par- 
sons who desecrated the pulpit by preaching politics, that 
is. preaching that people ought to obey God rather than 
the Fugitive Slave Act. Such men were, in the language 
of one of the New York commercial journals, " clerical 
preachers of rebellion," and their congregations were ex- 
horted to "leave them to naked walls." But the leaven 
was at work, and an antidote was greatly wanted. Supply 
of course follows demand, and forthwith there was a sud- 



39 

den advent of cotton clergymen, preaching against rebel- 
lion, and cunningly confounding a conscientious, passive 
disobedience with forcible resistance. Their sermons, in 
which virtually 

" The image of God was accounted as base, 
And the image of Ccesar set up in its place," 

were received with mighty applause by the very men who 
had been striving to save the pulpit from all contaminating 
contact with politics, and the reverend preachers of cotton 
politics were elevated into patriots, and their disquisitions 
against the "higher law" were scattered on the wings of 
the commercial j)ress broadcast over the land.* The theol- 



* In one of the most celebrated of these sermons, we find the following 
broad assertion: — " If God has left to men the choice of tlie Ainrf of gov- 
ernment they will have, he has not left it to their choice whether they will 
obey human government or not. He has commanded that obedience." Our 
rulers command us, wlien ri,(piired by a commissioner's agent, to aid in hunt- 
ing and seizing our innocent fellow-men, and delivering tlicm into the hands 
of their task-masters. That the reverend preacher would render a cheerful 
obedience to such a mandate, there is little doubt. We read that the Jewish 
rulers, "The chief priests and Pharisees, had given a coz/i/nflnffwrn/, that, if 
any one knew where he (Jesus) was, he should show it, that they might take 
him." Strange is it, that of the college of Apostles there was but one 
"good citizen," who rendered obedience to the powers ordained by God ; all 
the others suffered death for their wilful, deliberate defiance of the laws and 
the magistrates of the land. As a specimen of the teaching of these cotton 
divines, I quote from this same admired sermon the following precious piece 
of information, viz.: — "Nor is it true that the fugilire slate is made an 
outlaw, and on that ground justifiable for bloody and murderous resistance of 
law. He is under the ■protection of law ; and if any man injures him, or kills 
liim, the law will avenge him, just as soon as it icould you or me." To deny 
the truth of this solemn declaration, made in the house of God, would be in 
the reverend gentleman's estimation, but a portion of " that perpetual abuse 
of our Southern brethren " ol' which he complains. He must, however, per- 
mit us to call his attention to the following advertisements respecting a ftgi- 
TivE SLAVE, published in the Wilmington Journal of the 18lh of October last 
in pursuance of a law of the State of IS'orlh (Carolina. 

" Slate ojWorlh Carolina, .Xcic Hanover County. — Whereas complaint upon 
oath hath this day been made to us, two of the justices of the peace for 
the State and County aforesaid, by Guilford Horn, of Edgecombe County, 
that a certain male slave belonging to him, named Harrv, — a carpenter by 
trade, about 40 years old, 5 feet 5 inches high, or thereabouts, yellow com- 



40 

02T vhich holds that the allegiance we owe to civil gor- 
emmem binds the conscience to obedience to its mandates. 
is the same with which Shaksr^are's assassin quieted his 
scraples when acting mider the royal command. — -If a 
Vin? bid a man be a rillainj he is bound by the indenture 
of his oath to be one." 

1 1 is amusing to observe with what awful reverence our 
merchants and brokers regard the sanctity of human law. 
when it commands them to catch slaves ; a reverence not 
always fell by them for the statute of usury when the 
money market is tight, 

A vast deal of nonsense and impiety has been recently 
thrown upon the public in relation to the " higher law." 
tr men who had political and pecuniary interests depend- 

z'.iz. z. v:--. :,-!: ^ :^ i ~:ir :z Is --. zZ i::~ ::? :-: :f m axe), has 

T- - : ^ ■ : T.-j i-::^e. tolerablT 

; ^ . . - - . ■ , 1 • 1 ^ T -7 ; irk srot on 

- - - — - ^ • i ier- 

i . . . ^^ i,3of 

-'- uie Stale 

^ - ' z -riom 

T in 



'^G.' :- -: It- : -• ^Lzii mi j^s-j. u„s it-^h C3.j of Jcce, ISo^J. 

•JAMES T. MILLER, J. P. 
«W. C. BENTTENCOURT, J. P. 

"Or*. HimwCT ASD TWKrrr-mn ihuxaks rzwaed will be paid for the 
ddirerr of sid Habxt to was at Toosott Depot, Edgecombe Coantj. or for 
kn I tmGmi mu iil is aaj jail in the State, so thax I can ge: him ,: or one hojc- 
died and £Rj doDazs will be giTea fiir his Hkad. He was Isiely heard &om 
in Newbets, wfaae be called binself Honr Barnes (or Boms) and will be 
EkdT to coatiaBe tbe name or innnnr thai of Co^ipage or Fanner. He has a 
fiee i iib I l it ' wwin for a wife, by the name of Sallj Bozeman, who has latel j 
jemand to WHnngton, and fires in '.li: p^". cf the town called Texas, 
vhete be win fikelj be fanUi^ 

« GUILFORD HORN. 

"Jmm£ 29, ISO.'- 



41 

ing on the goorl-will of the slaveholders. The whole sub- 
ject is perfectly simple and intelligible, and has been inten- 
tionally misre|irescnted and mystified. 

Human government is indispensable to the happiness 
and progress of human society. Hence God, in his wis- 
dom and benevolence, wills its existence : and in this 
sense, and this alone, the powers that be are ordained by 
him. But civil government cannot exist, if each individ- 
ual may, at his pleasure, forcibly resist its injunctions. 
Therefore Christians are required to snbrjiit to the powers 
that be, whether a Nero or a slave-catching Congress. But 
obedience to the civil ruler often necessarily involves re- 
bellion to God. Hence we are warned by Christ and his 
Apostles, and by the example of saints in all ages, in such 
cases, not to obey, but to submit and sutTer. We are to 
hold fast our allegiance to Jehovah, but at the same time 
not take up arms to defend ourselves against the penalties 
imposed by the magistrate for our disobedience. Thus the 
Divine sovereignty and the authority of human govern- 
ment are both maintained. Revolution is not the abolition 
of human government, but a change in its form, and its 
lawfulness depends on circumstances. AVhat was the 
'• den " in which John Bunyan had his glorious vision of 
the Pilgrim's Progress ? A prison to which he was confined 
for years for refusing obedience to human laws. And 
what excuse did this holy man make for conduct now 
denounced as wicked and rebellious? "I caimot obey, 
but I can suffer." The Quakers have from the first refused 
to obey the law requiring them to bear arms ; yet have they 
never been vilified by our politicians and cotton clergymen, 
as rebels against the powers that be. nor sneered at for 
their acknowledgment of a "higher" than human law. 
The Lord Jesus Christ, after requiring us to love God and 
our neighbour, added, " There is none other commandment 
greater than these"; no, not even a slave-catching act of 
Congress, which requires us to hunt our neighbour, that 
he may be reduced to the condition of a beast of burden. 
6 



42 

Rarely has the religions faith of the commnaity received 
so nide a shock as that which has been given it by your 
horrible law. and the principles advanced by its political 
and clerical supporters. Cruelty, oppression, and injustice 
are elevated into virtues, while justice, mercy, and com- 
passion are ridiculed and vilified. 

But lately, the business of catching slaves was regarded 
as one of the lowest grades of scoundrelism. Now. great 
pains are taken by our gentlemen of property and standing 
to ennoble it : and men of eminence in the legal profession 
are stooping to take the wages of iniquity, and lending 
themselves to consign to the horrors of American slavery 
men whom they know to be innocent of crime. Nay, we 
have seen in Xew York a committee of gentlemen actually 
raising money by voluntary contribution to furnish a slave- 
catcher with professional services gratis ; — a free gift, not 
to mitigate human misery, but to aggravate the hardships 
of the poor and friendless a thousandfold. Can men of 
standing in the community thus openly espouse the cause 
of cruelty and oppression, and, from commercial and polit- 
ical views, trample upon every principle of Christian be- 
nevolence, without corrupting the moral sense of the people 
to the extent of their induence : When gentlemen club 
together to hire a lawyer to assist a slave-catcher, no won- 
der that the commercial press should teem with the vilest 
abuse of all who feel sympathy for the fugitive. One of 
the most malignant proslavery journals in New York is 
edited by yom* colleague and fellow- Whig, the Honerable 
JMr. Brooks, and his brother. I copy. Sir, for your consid- 
eration, the following article from ihe Xeit York Even- 
ing Erpress. published during the late trial in that city of 
Henry Long, an alleged fugitive : — 

" Two fugitive cases are now before our courts : one 
that of the negro Henry Long, and the other that of three 
white Frenchmen, under the extradition treaty with France. 
The negro's case makes a great deal of noise, because he 
is black : the three white Frenchmen are hardlv heard of. 



43 

The tliree white French people pay their own counsel : 
they may have committed a robbery in Paris, or may not ; 
are perhaps innocent, though possibly guilty ; but here 
they are on trial, with no chance of a trial before a jury ! 
If they are sent back, and are convicted, they go to the 
galleys, and are slaves for life. The negro, Henry Long, 
lucky fellow for being black! lives in clover here, and has 
one of the best speakers in the city, on the best fee, inter- 
ests all the Abolitionists in all quarters, who contribute 
money freely for his defence, and if he is returned, leaves 
here canonized as a martyr, and goes back to the condition 
he was born in, to fatten on hog and hominy, better fed 
and better clothed than nine tenths of the farm laborers in 
Great Britain. Another consideration strikes us, and that 
is, the cost of defending Long will buy his freedom three 
times over. The very fee of his counsel would purchase 
his freedom. But to buy him and pay for him, not steal 
him. would leave no room for agitation. And where does 
this money come from, that cares for Long and neglects 
the three Frenchmen ? From England, in the main, we 
believe. The Abolitionists here do not contribute it.'' 

It would be difficult to find in the Satanic press a more 
clumsy piece of malignant falsehood. We have here, from 
the same pen, and in the same article, the assertions, that 
the Abolitionists, in all quarters, we are assured, "contrib- 
ute money freely for his defence '" : and then the money, 
it is believed, comes mainly from England. '• The Abo- 
litionists here do not contribute it." To contribute money 
for the legal defence of a fugitive is stealing him. The 
cost of defending Long amounted to three times the price 
that would be asked for him. Long, after his return, sold 
in Richmond for $750 ; of course his defence cost $2,250. 
To whom, and for what, was this money paid ? Long 
could not be bought in New York, all advances for the 
purpose being peremptorily repulsed. His counsel's fee 
was $300, being all contributed in New York, and about 
$100 of it being raised by the free colored people. While 



44 

$300 were thns raised to give Long the chance of a legal 
defence, gentlemen of the New York Union Safety Com- 
mittee, of w.hich your colleague has the honor of being a 
member, contributed ^500 to aid the slave-catcher in re- 
ducing to bondage a man unaccused of crime ! 

I am inclined to believe, Sir, that you have little cause 
to congratulate yourself, that, in voting for the Fugitive 
Slave Law, you hkve advanced the cause of truth, justice, 
humanity, or religion. 

A refusal to obey your wicked law has been artfully rep- 
resented as a determination to resist its execution. Very 
iew of our white population have intimated the most dis- 
tant intention of resorting to illegal violence. Yery many 
ecclesiastical bodies have denounced your law as so iniqui- 
tous, that they could not in conscience obey it : but I 
challenge you to point to a single instance in which such 
a body has recommended forcible resistance. To the vast 
accumulation of impiety uttered in support of your law 
has been added a fiendish ridicule of the benevolent and 
Christian feeling arrayed against it. It is true, that some 
of our free blacks and fugitives have declared, that they 
would, at the hazard of their lives, defend themselves 
against the kidnapper. Whatever may be thought of the 
wisdom of such a determination, be assured it will tax 
your logical powers to the utmost to prove that God has 
conferred the right of self-defence exclusively upon white 
men. The slave is a prisoner of war, and instead of being 
protected by law, he is subjected by it to every conceivable 
outrage. When murdered, his owner seeks in the courts 
damages at the hands of the murderer, as he would for the 
death of his horse. For no possible injury committed on 
his person, either by his owner or others, can he receive 
compensation, although the law may profess to punish 
cruelty to him as to other animals. Now it has never been 
regarded as immoral, by those who admit the right of self- 
defence, for a prisoner of war to effect his escape by slay- 
ing his guard. All this, I know, will horrify a certain class 



45 

of our divines and politicians. But let them be patient. 
I am not laying down a doctrine, but stating facts, which 
they may disprove if they can. Let them remember, that 
all the slavery which they delight to find in the Bible was 
the slavery of vhite men, and that the Roman slaves in 
the time of Christ, whose bondage, we are told, he and his 
Apostles approved, were held by the right of war. While 
Americans have been held as slaves by the same holy and 
Scriptnral tenure. Let us, then, inqnire how the escape 
and resistance of white slaves have heretofore been regard- 
ed. In 1535, the white slaves in Tnnis alone amounted 
to twenty thousand. Cervantes, who had himself been a 
slave in Algiers, says in his writings, " For liberty we 
ought to risk life itself; slavery being the greatest evil 
that can fall to the lot of man." Acting upon this precept, 
he himself, while a slave, planned a general insurrection of 
the slaves. Yet Cervantes was recognized as a faithfnl 
son of the Church, and the license prefixed to his works 
declares they contain nothing contrary to the Christian 
religion. The Amnial Register for 1763 announces, that, 
"last month, tlic Christian slaves at Algiers, to the number 
of four thousand, rose and killed their guards, and mas- 
sacred all who came in their way." The insurrection was 
suppressed, but no one in Europe denounced the insur- 
gents as bloodthirsty wretches, nor regarded their effort as 
an impious and anti-Christian rebellion against the powers 
ordained of God. In the reign of Elizabeth, one John Fox, 
a slave on the Barbary coast, slew his master, and, effecting 
his escape with a number of his fellow-slaves, arrived in 
England. The queen, instead of looking upon him as a 
murderer, testified her admiration of his exploit by allow- 
ing him a pension.* 

Washington Madison performed a similar exploit on 
board an American coast slaver, and arrived, with a large 
number of his fellow-slaves, in the British West Indies. 

* For tlie facts on tliis sul)jt'ct, see the admirable work liy Charles Sniii- 
ner, entitled " White Slayer}' in the Barbary States." 



46 

cc ibr B-; . :r „ _: : - : — - -. - = sur?r::^rr c: :h:5 heroic ni^in 
In 17^yi3. ; r::ern American 



S^err >Lr- Wt 






men 
i 

T of 



T-T - -ne: ^::: rated br the 



47 

r org^iazzatioiQ of tiae go re i mm ept, has stk^ 

^ -----. -y..^^ .^.-- — -r tbe lacod. Nerer be- 

f'TT*. IT} a f . en B3aasu£esfied ihroosii- 

:. of tbe dMiQXQ33&kT. erf idl creeds 

leteassMiK;" -d 

_ - ^ _ . ; : 1 lav c f L:- 

: f the sreai mass ©f the : f tbe free States, 

caHy einbc--^ -^ ._ - .--- in of tL- . 

Chicago. XTL. : — -- The Furirire Slave _-_ 

by Gomgress is reToliing to onr moral 9eDse, and an ontrage 

<3D Odir : ; - - : ■ e- 

ssords : ^5 

bare :': ■ I hl:»ertT. aod its dirr 1- 

cy • 

ii: :.. .. 

Hcsr 12.: • _ . _■ : -e 

been c iet ttie recrait rout of Mr. Wet:: y 

ic "*' ' • Let his o-'^ri^ declsj- 

^':t ~ere adopted, that ' : 

- ■ . -,,l testify.* H:^ :> 

I »■ O uiTS liaS i oniDed the '- 



v^^- 



:-rDoiii>ce~ 



tbe C: : .-se il r^ ^ - 

fiioan the baods of the commiss. 1 g^^^s : 

tnall before a State eonrL testify 

that Mr. Webster iEteoded to :- 

liae WaJbaot Proriso, tbe 3~f^tf Ybrt He 

XodtbraTi organ of tbe slaTehcldtrs. promir-t : 

Seajfflitoff ironld indeed pmsDe £ : — -- . - _ - 

fol cooiatiy ■HTOTil'd, at tbe laex: 

Presidential cbair. Bnt scarcely bad tbe acts aflT 

by 3itr. Webster beeiQ coaasanamated, than ibf ^^ 

sardonic malice, acmoamoes. — -Tbe paec . 

day. tijEat xbe Cotoaprosxaise Ball "srorald s:peedi}y 

* Lener la Unko MecOoag hi ?We«- York. 2^ Ocs^ ISfi. 



4S 

all parties, and restore the era of good feeling, were exactly 
the reverse of the actual consequences. Mr. Webster has 
been cast overboard in Massachusetts. General Cass has 
been virtually condemned in Michigan. Mr. Dickinson, 
the President, and his cabinet, have been routed in New 
York. Mr. Phelps has been sipcrseded in Vermont. 
Whilst in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, the Free- 
Soilers have carried off the booty." And he winds up with 
declaring, that the next President " can't be Fillmore nor 
Webster." 

If the "peace measures" have strengthened the bond of 
the Union, what mean all the meetings lately held to save 
the Union? Why is the tocsin now sounded by the very 
authors and friend ^ of the measures ? How comes it that, 
in Boston itself, the chairman of a Union meeting contra- 
dicts the exulting and jubilant shout of triumph uttered by 
the Secretary of State, and makes the following doleful 
announcement: — "The Union, and consequently the ex- 
istence of this nation, is menaced, and unless there is a 
great and general effort in their support, we may soon be- 
hold the mighty fabric of our government trembling over 
our heads, and threatening by its fall to crush the prosperi- 
ty which we have so long and happily enjoyed." So re- 
laxed has become the bond of our Union, that one hundred 
gentlemen of property and standing in New York have, 
under the style and title of " The New York Union Com- 
mittee of Safety," assumed the onerous task of taking it 
into their safe-keeping. "Committees of safety " are asso- 
ciated with times of peril and anarchy, and are never 
wanted when alarms have ceased, angry discussions ended, 
the Constitution fortified, and the bond of union strength- 
ened. 

In this universal panic, in this dread entertained, especi- 
ally in Boston, by Mr. Webster's friends, of soon seeing the 
mighty fabric of our government trembling over their 
heads, it may, Sir, be consolatory to you and others to 
know how so dire a calamity may be averted. The chiv- 



A') 

alric Senator from Mississippi — the gentleman who tlireat- 
ens to hang one Senator if lie dare ])lace his foot on tlie 
soil of Mississippi, who draws a loaded pistol on another, 
and for a third hears a challenge to mortal combat — was 
lately in the city of New York. The Committee of Safety 
found him out, and lauded him for his fearless discharge of 
duty, and his fervor and dev^otion to the Union, and wel- 
comed him to the commercial emporium in the name of all 
who appreciate the blessings we enjoy, and are willing to 
transmit them to their children. The worthy and concilia- 
tory gentleman very appropriately communicated to the 
committee having the Union in charge the conditions on 
which alone it could be saved, notwithstanding its bond 
had so recently been strengthened. These conditions are, 
we learn, four in number. 

1. " The Fugitive Slave Bill passed by Congress shall 
remain the law of the land, and be faithfully executed." 

Both you and Mr. Webster admit that the Constitution 
permits a jury trial to the fugitive. Should Congress, in 
its wisdom, and in obedience to the wishes of the great 
mass of the Northern population, and in the exercise of its 
constitutional power, elevate property in a human being to 
the same level with that in a horse, and permit a jury to 
pass upon the title to it, — the Union must be dissolved. 

2. " The Wilmot Proviso, that monstrous thing, shall not 
be revived." It was not courteous, certainly, in Mr. Foote 
thus to characterize Mr. Webster's thunder. The claim to 
this thunder was made in his speech, September, 1S47, at 
the Springfield Convention, which nominated him for 
President ; and the Convention, in his presence, thus de- 
clared their devotion to his missile. " The Whigs of Mas- 
sachusetts now declare, and put this declaration of their 
purpose 071 record, that Massachusetts will never consent 
that Mexican territories, however acquired, shall become a 
part of the American Union, unless on the ^inalterable con- 
dition that there shall be neither slavery nor invohmtary 
servitude, otherwise than in punishment for crime." The 

7 



50 

next year Mr. Webster launched his thunder over the Ter- 
ritory of Oregon, and thus in his speech (10th August. 
1S4S) vindicated it from the character now given to it by 
Mr. Foote : — 

•'• Gentlemen from the South declare that we invade 
their rights when we deprive them of a participation in 
the enjoyment of territories acquired by the common ser- 
vices and common exertions of all. Is this true ? Of what 
do we deprive them ? Why, they say that we deprive 
them of the privilege of carrying their slaves as slaves into 
the new territories. Well. Sir, what is the amount of 
that : They say, that in this way we deprive them of 
going into this acquired territory with their property. 
Their property ! What do they mean by this ' property ' ? 
We certainly do not deprive them of the privilege of going 
into those newly acquired territories with all that, in the 
general estimate of human society and common and uni- 
versal understanding of mankind, is esteemed property. 
Not at all. The truth is just this. They have in their 
own States peculiar laws which create property in persons. 

The real meaning, then, of Southern gentlemen, 

in making this complaint, is, that they cannot go into the 
territories of the United States carrying with them their 
own peculiar law. a law which creates property in per- 
sons." 

So the Wilmot Proviso was no monstrous thing at all, 
as applied to Oregon. "When the question came up of 
applying this same Proviso to New Mexico and California, 
Mr. Webster discovered in these Territories a certain pecu- 
liarity of physical geography and Asiatic scenery which 
he had not discovered in Oregon, and which, he found, 
rendered it a physical impossibility for Southern gentlemen 
to carry there " a law which creates property in persons," 
and he therefore gave them full liberty to carry their law 
into those vast regions, if they could. But at the very 
moment of giving this liberty to Southern gentlemen, he 
courageously warned them that his thunder was good con- 



stitutional thunder, and would be used whenever necessary. 
" Wherever there is an i)ich of land to be stayed back from 
becoming slave territory, I am ready to insert the princij»le 
of the excUision of slavery. I am pledged to that from 
1837, — pledged to it again and again, and I will perform 
those pledges." So, should we get another slice of Mexico, 
or annex Cuba or St. Domingo, Mr. Webster would re- 
vive the Wilmot Proviso, and then he will be the means, 
if he succeeds, of dissolving the Union ! 

3. The next condition announced to the Safety Com- 
mittee is, — " No attempt shall be made in Congress to pro- 
hibit slavery in the District of Columbia.*' 

Now it is the opinion of Mr. Webster, that Congress has 
the constitutional right, not merely to attempt, but actually 
to effect, the exclusion of slavery in all the Territories of the 
United States. The District of Columbia being placed by 
the Constitution expressly under "the exclusive jurisdic- 
tion " of Congress, the constitutional right to abolish slav- 
ery there has rarely been questioned : but it has been con- 
tended that good faith to the States which ceded the Dis- 
trict forbids such an act of constitutional power. Hence, 
in 1S3S, a resolution was introduced into the Senate de- 
claring that the abolition of slavery in the District would 
be '-a violation of good faith,'* «.^c. What said Mr. Web- 
ster ? " I do not know any matter of fact, or any ground 
of argument, on which this affirmation of plighted faith 
can stand. I see nothing in the act of cession, and nothing 
in the Constitution, and nothing in the transaction, imply- 
ing any limitation on the authority of Congress." * 

* On the lOlh of January, 183^, Mr. Clay moved in the Senate the follow- 
ing resolution, viz. : — " Resolved, that the interference by the citizens of any 
of the States with a view to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endan- 
gering the rights and security of the people of this District : and that any ;ict 
or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in this District would be 
a violation of the faith implied in ihe cession by the States of Virginia and 
Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the ptojile of the slaveholding Slates, and 
have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union." — 
Passed, 3d to 8, Mr. Webster voUng in the negative. Senate Journal, 2 Sess. 
25 Cong., p. 127. 



52 

4. The last condition on which the Union can be 
preserved is, — " No State shall be prevented from coming 
into the Union on the ground of having slavery." This 
is an unkind cut at Mr. Webster, since he has again and 
again pledged himself against the admission of slave States. 
Even so early as 1819, he advocated, in a public meeting 
at Boston, a resolution declaring that Congress '• possessed 
the constitutional power, upon the admission of any new 
State created beyond the limits of the original territory of 
the United States, to make the prohibition of the further 
extension of slavery or involuntary servitude in such new 
State a condition of admission. That, in the opinion of 
this meeting, it is just and expedient that this power 
should be exercised by Congress upon the admission of all 
new States created beyond the original limits of the United 
States." In his New York speech, in 1837, he averred, 
" When it is proposed to bring new members into the po- 
litical partnership, the old members have a right to say on 
what terms such new partners are to come in, and what they 
are to bring along loith them^ In his Springfield speech, 
he insisted, "There is no one [he forgot Mr. Foote and 
his other Southern friends] who can complain of the North 
for resisting the increase of slave representation^ because it 
gives power to the minority in a manner inconsistent with 
the principles of our government." So late as 1848, he 
proclaimed on the floor of the Senate, *' I shall oppose all 
such extension [slave representation] at all times and under 
all circumstances, even against all inducements, against all 
combinations, against all compromises." 

The State of Georgia, in her convention of December 
last, added a fifth condition to those stated by Mr. Foote 
as indispensable to the preservation of the Union, viz. : — 
" No act suppressing the slave-trade between the slave- 
holding States." Unfortunately for Mr. Webster, he is 
here, for the fifth time, virtually held up as a disorganizer, 
and an enemy of the Union ; for in his speech in the Sen- 
ate (6th February, 1837) he remarked, — "As to the point. 



the right of regulating the transfer of slaves from one Stale 
to another, he did not know that he entertained any doubt, 
because the Constitution gave Congress the right to regu- 
late trade and commerce between the States. Trade in 
what ? In whatever was the subject of commerce and 
ownership. If slaves were the subjects of ownership, then 
trade in them between the States was subject to the regu- 
lation of Congress." 

I\Ir. Webster declared, that the work of the two days 
in whicl> he rejoiced had fortified the Constitution, and 
strengthened the bond of the Union ; and yet we are now 
solemnly warned, by the very men and party with whom 
he is acting, that the bond is to be severed, should Con- 
gress pass any one of five laws, all and each of which he, 
the great expounder, declares the Constitution authorizes 
Congress to pass. So it seems the great peril to which we 
are exposed, the course which is to make the fabric of our 
government to tremble over the heads of the people of 
Boston, is, not the violation of the Constitution, nor the 
breach of its compromises, nor the invasion of the rights 
of the South, but the exercise by Congress of powers 
which Mr. Webster declares to be undoubtedly constitu- 
tional. The Abolitionists supposed they were following 
a safe guide when they confined themselves, in their pe- 
titions to Congress for legislative action against slavery, 
exclusively to such measures as they were assured, by the 
eminent expounder, were strictly constitutional. The Abo- 
litionists have sympathized with this gentleman in the ob- 
loquy he incurred, in common with themselves, for holding 
^opinions unpalatable to the slaveholders, and for maintain- 
ing the constitutional rights of Congress. Because he 
insisted, in the Senate, on the power of Congress over 
slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, 
Mr. Rives, of Virginia, was so unkind as to say, that the 
gentleman from Massachusetts, " if it so pleased his fancy, 
might disport himself in tossing scpiibs and firebrands about 
this hall ; but those who are sitting upon a barrel of gun- 



54 
to be blown i: 









j:ncss ic inx. Mr. 


'r'. 


e Sen- 




:i 21 the 




:jx3 CoiKiess with their 




S:_''i:-£e =1. Mr. Curhli^rt, ot 


-■ 


■ . ■ ■ ' . ^ . . 


- 


- - c_ 




: , • T - . : : . . 


l^t:.: 




^ 


: 




. - - 


the L:i;: 


;^--i_ 


ciijcs stt - 


- ' :" " 


CTT "~. 


; . -_ ^ 




-r -,•--■-"---- •■ 


-~ 


*" TiTef?-" ac-d -• ^ : :?,*■ 


- - ^ - - - ' 


- - -' " 




* SpssiJL. J-ji-i r. '-'.''y. 



The Southern papers tell ns that onr Union meetincrs are 
got up to " sell a little more tape and flainiel " ; and they 
remark, " It is very (piecr that Union meetings are held 
only in jilaces which trade with the South." Out of re- 
gard to their Southern brethren, a member of the British 
House of Commons was insulted in Faneuil Hall by a por- 
tion of the Boston people, and forthwith the New Orleans 
Delta, instead of gratefully ackowledging the compliment, 
remarks, that their "good Union-loving friends in Boston 
are now solacing the South with sugar-plums in the shape 
of resolutions and speeches, and spice in the form of a row, 
got up on the occasion of the first appearance of George 
Thompson, an imported incendiary and hireling agitator. 
Such manifestation possesses an advantage which doubtless 
constitutes no small recommendation with our good breth- 
ren of Boston, — it is very cheap. The cottoncratical 
clerks and warehousemen may raise a hubbub in Faneuil 
Hall, but the fanatics can slay them at the polls.'' 

It is some consolation to those who are now suffering all 
the contempt and opprobrium Miiich can be thrown both 
upon their heads and their hearts, because they have re- 
fused to follow Mr. Webster in the devious paths in which 
it has lately been his pleasure to walk, that they have by 
their constancy and firmness extorted from their Southern 
antagonists a tribute which is not paid to their revilers. 
Said Mr. Stanley, of Virginia, in his speech in the House 
of Representatives last March, speaking of a certain class of 
Northern politicians, — "I would say, with a slight altera- 
tion of one of Canning's verses, — 

' Give me'lhe avowed, erect, and manly foe, 
Open I can meet, perhaps may turn, his blow ; 
But of all the plagues, great Heaven, thy wrath can send. 
Save, O, save me from a dough-face friend .' 

In closing this long letter, permit me to advert to the 
opinion expressed abroad of your Fugitive Law. Mr. Web- 
ster thought it convenient to i[uote the sentiment of a 
nameless correspondent, as to the mischievous mixture of 



56 

religion with politics. Possibly the opinion oi Dr. Liish- 
ington. one of the Lords of the Priry Council. Judge of the 
Yice-Admiralty Court, and the negotiator, on the part of 
Great Britain, of a recent treaty with France, may be en- 
titled, to at least equal weight. This gentleman, in a 
private letter to an English friend, and not intended for 
publication, thus speaks of your law : — •• Xo one can feel 
more sincerely than myself, abhorrence of the Fugitive 
Slave Bill. — a measure as cruel and unchristian as ever 
disgraced any country." An Irish Uberal. writing from 
Dublin, says. — •'•'! long looked to your country as the ark 
of the world's hberties. I confess I hope for this no longer. 
The Fugitive Slave Bill is a shocking sample of the de- 
pravity of public sentiment in the United States. So atro- 
cious a measure could not have passed into a law. if the 
majority of the people had not actively assented, or pas- 
sively consented. Here, by the preponderating influence 
of our aristocracy, a small, but compact body, measures are 
often carried into laws that are very distasteful to multi- 
tudes : but such a mean, vile law as the Fugitive Slave 
Bill could not pass in England."* 

The English press, Whig. Tory, and Radical, is indig- 
nant at the atrocities of your law. The taunt of our slave- 
holders, that the English had better reform abuses at home, 
is thus met by a radical journal ( The People) : — ••' The 
Americans laugh at us when we speak of American slavery, 
so long as so many of our feUow-subjects in England and 
IrelcUid are perishing from starvation through monarchical 
and aristocratical tyranny. We answer, that the Ameri- 
cans know that the men and women who lift up their 
voices against American slavery are the enemies of British 
tyranny and oppression." 

Your law. Sir, degrades the national character abroad ; 
its excessive servility to Southern dictation excites the con- 
tempt of the slaveholders for the easy, selfish virtue of their 
Northern auxiliaries, while its outrages upon religion, jus- 
tice, humanity, and the dearest principles of personal free- 



57 

dom, under pretence of preserving the Union, weaken the 
attachment of conscientious men for a confederacy which 
requires such horrible sacrifices for its continuance. All 
these evils might have been easily avoided by a law satis- 
fying every requirement of the Constitution, and yet treat- 
ing the alleged fugitive as a man, and granting him the 
same protection as is accorded to an alleged murderer. 
God gave you, Sir, an opportunity for which you ought to 
have been grateful, of illustrating your Puritan descent by 
standing forth before the nation as an advocate of justice 
and freedom, and of the rights of the poor and oppressed. 
Through a blind devotion to a political leader, you rejected 
the palm which Providence tendered to your acceptance, 
and have indelibly associated your name with cruelty and 
injustice. Had you retired from the notice of the public, 
as you did from the suffrages of the electors, you had acted 
wisely. In an evil hour for yourself, you stood forth as 
the champion of the Fugitive Slave Law. Its enemies re- 
joice in your rashness, for your feeble apology has rendered 
its deformities more prominent, and, by failing to vindicate, 
you have virtually confessed its abominations. May you 
live, Sir, to deplore the grievous error you have committed, 
and, by your future efforts in behalf of human freedom and 
happiness, atone for the wound they have received at your 
hands. 

HANCOCK. 

February, 1851. 



